Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence

INTELLIGENCE SERVICES ACT• 261

Territorial Army, so the Depot was moved from Wentworth Wood-

house in Yorkshire to Oudenarde Barracks in Aldershot. Almost si-

multaneously, the School of Military Intelligence was transferred

from Matlock to Wilton Park, and then in 1948 to a hutted camp at

Maresfield in Sussex.

Since the end of World War II, the Intelligence Corps has sent

Field Security Sections (with the military intelligence designation

MI11) and Field Security Wings to almost all the trouble spots where

British troops have been deployed. Based until 1992 at theTempler

Barracksat Ashford, it has now moved to RAFChicksands Priory.

INTELLIGENCE SERVICES ACT.The Intelligence Services Act of
1992 created theParliamentary Intelligence and Security Com-
mitteeand, for the first time, laid out the duties of theSecret Intelli-
gence Service(SIS) chief. As set out in clause 2 of the act, the
Chief’s role is to ensure the efficiency of SIS and ‘‘to ensure that
there are arrangements for securing that no information is obtained
by the Intelligence Service except so far as is necessary for the
proper discharge of its functions’’ and to prevent the disclosure of
information ‘‘except so far as is necessary in the interests of national
security, for the purpose of prevention or detection of crime, or for
the purpose of any criminal proceedings.’’ In addition, the Chief has
an obligation to write an annual report for the prime minister and not
to ‘‘take any action to further the interests of any United Kingdom
political party.’’ SIS’s legitimate functions, as spelled out in the act,
are

to obtain and provide information relating to the actions or intentions of

persons outside the British Islands, and to perform other tasks relating to

the actions or intentions of such persons. The functions of the Intelligence

Service shall be exercisable only in the interests of national security, with

particular reference to the defense and foreign policies of Her Majesty’s

Government in the United Kingdom, or in the economic well-being of the

United Kingdom, or in support of the prevention or detection of serious

crime.

This felicitous use of language amounted to the first encapsulation

of SIS’s role and, thanks toSir Colin McColl’s drafting and lobby-

ing skills, was so widely drawn as to encompass virtually every even-

tuality. It did not attempt to define any of the terms used, such as